Weekend Guest Read online

her hand, nestling against her stomach. She passed Shazam off to an empty chair. Shazam squirmed and tried to move back to her lap, but she held her off.

  “I have to leave, Ryan. Thank you for letting me stay. You’ve been wonderful. I don’t know how to repay you.”

  She was locked up in a place dark and far away. I wanted to beg her to stay and tell me what was going on, unravel her web of secrets. But Sheila was not part of my life anymore. She was a phantom. Ghosts were haunting her, ghosts that she’d never reveal to me.

  “Can I drive you to the airport?”

  She shook her head. “No, it’s better if I take a cab. But thanks anyway.”

 

  She went to the guest room and packed. I dressed and waited in the living room. When she emerged, her eyes were red from crying. She wouldn’t look at me, but came over and put her arms around me. “Thank you, Ryan. You’ve been wonderful. You’re special.”

  A kiss at the door. A hug. She reached down to pat Shazam, and then she was gone. I didn’t walk her down to the street.

  I picked up the Sunday paper and went back inside, a black cloud hanging over my apartment.

  All afternoon I read and reread the lead story on the front page of the Chronicle. My heart ached with every sentence. I was angry, hurt, sad, lonesome, and distraught. But I was better off than Sheila. And I had no idea where she was or where she was going.

  INDICTMENTS HANDED DOWN IN MORTGAGE FRAUD

  Arrests expected soon for Olympus Capital principals

  Federal regulators have shuttered the offices of Crescent City–based Olympus Capital, a regional brokerage firm charged with selling high-risk mortgage-backed securities to retirees while promising them they were as safe as money market funds or savings accounts, the U.S. Attorney’s office announced Friday.

  In an indictment filed in federal court Friday, federal prosecutors said retirees may have lost more than $100 million in the high-risk securities. Some investors lost all their savings in these securities, according to the filing.

  FBI spokesman George Polk said Friday that his agency is searching for several aides of Mark Phillips, president of Olympus Capital, on suspicion of fraud.

  The last paragraph:

  Among the suspects being sought are Sheila Cummins and Arnold Pfetzer, personal assistants of Phillips who allegedly sold the bogus investments to retirees, Polk said.

  An hour after I’d read the front page story, my cell phone began ringing. I didn’t answer. I was so stunned by the news that I didn’t want to talk to anyone.

  I left my phone in my apartment and went for a long walk all afternoon. I ate dinner at a quiet Italian restaurant and took another walk until it got dark. I got home around 9:00 p.m.

  My cell phone was vibrating on the table when I walked in. I picked it up; fifteen calls were waiting, most from Crescent City’s area code.

  I put my phone back on the table and went to bed. Monday mornings are hectic and I needed to get a good night’s sleep.

  T H E E N D

  Thank you for reading Weekend Guest, one of my short mysteries. I hope you enjoyed it and will consider writing a review on this site.

  I am currently writing a thriller series based in Milan featuring the anti-terrorist police, DIGOS, at Milan’s Questura (police headquarters). The first book in the series, Thirteen Days in Milan, is about an American single mother taken hostage by terrorist during a political assassination at Stazione Centrale, Milan’s main train station.

  The second book, No One Sleeps, is about Milan's DIGOS searching for a sleeper cell of Muslim terrorists who have received toxic chemicals from Pakistan to make deadly sarin gas. The terrorist leader has access to Milan's centers of finance, technology, commerce, and entertainment -- all high profile targets with potentially hundreds of casualties in a terrorist attack. You can order the No One Sleeps ebook at a discount on this site and receive it in December 2016. The paperback will be published in July 2017.

  The third book in the series, Cadorna Station, will be published as an ebook in March 2017.

  This is background on DIGOS:

  The World of DIGOS:

  General Investigations and Special Operations Division

  (Divisione Investigazioni Generali e Operazioni Speciali)

  Police forces all over the world -- and especially in Europe -- are being challenged by terrorist groups recruited in the Middle East by radical forces intent on destroying Western governments and cultures. The tragic bombings and heavily armed assaults on innocent civilians in France and Belgium are the latest and most deadly attacks since 9/11.

  Italy is at the center of the attempt to neutralize this threat with sophisticated police techniques and coordination among European governments. No One Sleeps is the fictionalization of an attempt by a cell of radical Muslims intent on attacking an important Italian cultural institution in Milan and killing hundreds of innocent Italians.

  Here is the opening chapter of No One Sleeps when a low level inspector at the port of La Spezia confesses to his brother-in-law, a police detective, that he was given bribes to allow shipments of suspicious cargo from Pakistan, bound for Milan, to pass through the port without being inspected.

  This is how the story begins . . .

  NO ONE SLEEPS